Eurovision 2015 Results

Studying the voting data of Eurovision Song Contests is almost as fun as watching the crazy, campy show itself. The data brings forward the voting blocs, politics, and the occasional actually good songs that underlie the sometimes-baffling Eurovision voting patterns. Since the show started publishing detailed country-specific rankings in 2014, the analysis has gotten even more interesting!

You can use this interactive visualisation to study both general and country-specific results:

You can choose the competition you want to look at. Semifinals feature only a handful of countries, while the grand final is missing the countries that were dropped in the semifinals. Countries that are not participating have their names hidden.

You can also choose which scoring method you want to view. Received points actually decide the winner, but the jury ranks (what songs expert juries prefer) and the televote ranks (what the audiences actually liked) give a lot of insight on the results.

Clicking any of the participating countries lets you see how other countries appreciated the country's song. The selected country is highlighted in bright orange. Click the country again to return to the general view.

The current Eurovision voting method combines jury and televoting ranks 50%-50% for each country and awards the country's points to a handful of the best songs. The method is, to my understanding, designed to prevent politics and neighbour relations from affecting the competition. In practice, it seems to have just given another layer to the politics; now the juries can tactically drop even audience favourites out of the ratings if they want. For example, the 2004 winner, Conchita Wurst, received 1 point from Azerbaijan and 0 points from Armenia, even though the song was the 3rd and the 2nd most popular song, respectively, among the audiences in the countries.

Please highlight any interesting discoveries you make in the comments!